Objectives The life of the law lies in its implementation, and so does its authority. Analyzing the illegal acts and legal liabilities established by the National Park Law can provide guidance for its optimized implementation.

Methods Based on the negative terms “shall not” and “prohibit” used in the normative text of the National Park Law, as well as the strong mandatory obligations indicated by the modal verb “should”, combined with the legal liability provisions in Chapter 6, this study identified the types of illegal acts set up in the National Park law. A total of 16 illegal acts were sorted out. Through a typological normative analysis of these acts, potential problems in the implementation of the legal liability provisions were found, and an optimization scheme for implementation was proposed.

Results The design of legal liabilities in the National Park Law exhibited characteristics of severely punishing illegal acts that damage the natural ecological environment, setting high standards with large fines, and adopting a compound liability structure of "restoration + fine". However, the implementation of the existing legal liability provisions may face challenges such as insufficient operability, absence of legal basis and inadequate balance

Conclusions As a new law, the National Park law should not be amended shortly after its enactment. Therefore, in order to ensure the implementation of the National Park Law, we must carry out various forms of legal application activities based on the existing normative provisions of the National Park Law, and adhere to the combination of legislation and interpretation. Specifically, the implementation optimization of the legal liability provisions of the National Park law should enhance the operability by strengthening coordination with other environmental protection laws and regulations, provide the legitimacy basis for the relevant legal consequences through local legislation for national parks, and realize the balance of legal liability allocation according to the principle of proportion, so as to provide a sound institutional guarantee for the high-quality development of China's national parks.